Color 911 HOW TO WORK WITH (AND ENHANCE) YOUR YARN COLLECTION Lisa Check Fiber Farmer and Indie Dyer Flying Goat Farm
HELP!! I buy the same yarn at every fiber festival Purple (insert color here) is my favorite color My friends know which yarn I will buy at each booth (predictable) I have all this yarn, but I don t know how to put it together for a project Do you see yourself in any of these statements? Let s make some changes together Today we will.
Color 101 Not just a 5 letter word There are a multitude of ways to talk about color Hue Saturation Value Tone Tint Shade
Hue This is the true color. It is what we mean when we say RED or YELLOW A Hue is a specific part of visual light. Geeky, I know There is a lot of variation between how individuals see color. What I see as navy many people see as purple. This is probably caused by the difference in numbers of the color detecting cells in your eyes. These differences may account for the highly colorful Impressionist paintings of Monet and Van Gogh.
Classifying Colors Warm Colors are the colors of the sun. They excite our eyes. They pop out from the work. Cool Colors are the colors of the sea. These colors are relaxing. They tend to be the background of the work.?
Still Classifying Colors Primary Colors red, blue, yellow (magenta, cyan and yellow) Secondary colors mix 2 of these together (violet, green and orange) Tertiary colors mix a primary and secondary color (red-orange, bluegreen)
Value and Saturation Lightness or Darkness of a color 10 step scale How can you determine value? Squinty eyes OR Red lens **Color Evaluator**
Tints/Tones/Shades Tints= color plus white (pastel) Tones= color plus gray Shades=color plus black Way to add value differences to your work
COLOR HARMONY Colors working together Some are snobs they don t do well with others Some are BFF s they ll work with others very well The harmonies are interactions that work well.
MONOCHROMATIC SCHEME One color with different saturations or values Gradient sets use these a lot It s one color so it has to work well. Very relaxing on the eye Patterns: Raddiant by me Artesian by Rosemary (Romi) Hill
ANALOGOUS COLORS Colors that are next to each other on the colorwheel Show color wheel Blue-green-purple Red-red/orange-orange A little more excitement for the eye Maryland My Maryland by me Olilia by Hanna Maciejewska Patterns
Sequences or Progressions New favorite way to dye 2 colors are combined in various amounts to come up with a type of gradient set. My Raddiant shawl is one pattern that was made especially for this kind of gradient.
Complementary Colors These are colors across the color wheel. The exact opposite Red/green Blue/orange Yellow/purple You can do this with secondary colors too These are the most exciting and dazzling. They are also the most dangerous. They can be too much. When used in small amounts like row by row. You will end up with a muddy look. Because when you add these two colors together you will get a medium gray. So be careful.
More about Complementary Colors To use effectively, use in bigger areas, large stripes or bigger motifs in stranded color works. If you use in single rows, you will end up with lots of vibration close up AND greyed out colors from far away as our eyes mix the two colors Also be aware of the value of the complementary colors. SWATCH!!!!! To be sure you like the two colors in the pattern you are using
Split Complementary Colorways Take a color and choose a color that borders its complement Red-Green (red-teal, red-lime) Green-Red (green-red/violet, green-red/orange) Blue-Orange (blue-yellow/orange, blue-red/orange) Orange-Blue (orange-teal, orange-blue/violet) Yellow-Purple (Yellow-red/violet, yellow-blue/violet) Purple-Yellow (purple-chartreuse, purple-yellow/orange)
More about Splits This is still as exciting, but somewhat more soothing and relaxing. It is not quite as eye dazzling. Patterns that would be great for this are: Camau Any shawl that is kind of stripy
Triads 3 equidistant colors Talked about before as primary, secondary and Tertiary Red-yellow-blue Orange-green-purple red-orange/yellow-green/blue-violet Red-violet/yellow-orange/blue-green CAREFUL!! These can be really clashing. Your values have to be carefully balanced. Not all bright hot colors but also not all low valued colors either
Tetrad 4 colors that are equidistant They are actually 2 sets of complementary colors Yellow-purple-orange and blue Again, CAREFULLY balance the values in order to make a pleasing blend. These could be used for some of those Fade patterns.
Questions? What will you knit next? Where you can find us next: Fiber Farmer s Market-Falls Church, VA March 17 th MD Sheep and Wool May 5-6 Fiber Art Studio Tour Jun 2-3